Research and Planning 4: Target Audience

The thriller genre relies heavily on two things: ENIGMA and ACTION. When looking at a specific target audience (in our case 17-25), you have to look into what they enjoy the most. Thriller films are most successful when they incorporate all three of these factors, however, not all people enjoy enigma; not all people enjoy suspense; not all people enjoy action. Because of this, some thriller films rely completely on one of these factors to make it successful. Depending on the type of person you are, you will enjoy different things.

Enigma Thrillers

When it comes to thriller films that rely heavily on the mystery of the situation, Mise en Scene and Camerawork play a big role in making it successful. To be more precise... the costumes, setting and lighting of Mise en Scene and the use of angles for Camerawork.

Costume

The use of costumes in thrillers are incredibly important as give the audience a sense of what the character/s are like (e.g. their personality, their background etc.). Costumes work together with the story in the sense that it keeps the audience guessing about the nature of the character; what are their intentions in the film; who do they represent (protagonist, antagonist etc.).

Setting

Settings are a key use of Mise en Scene when creating a thriller that relies heavily on enigma. It works incredibly well with non-chronological plots as it keeps the audience guessing about why characters are in certain settings.  For example, The Bourne Ultimatum drops the audience right into a chase scene. They have no prior knowledge and are unaware of why Bourne is in the location that he is. In order to work out what is going on, the audience have to pick out details in the setting that give them clues about where and why characters are in certain locations. This shrouds scenes like the example given in mystery, keeping the audience interested and wanting to find out how a character ended up where they are.

Lighting

Lighting can be used to aid in creating mystery for characters. With characters, a good use of lighting would be low key lighting. Low key lighting allows filmmakers to mess around with the lighting in certain areas by illuminating one area and shrouding another. A good example of creating mystery using this type of lighting would be a henchman talking to his boss. Whilst low key lighting is used to illuminate the henchman, it shrouds his boss. By doing this, the audience are able to start thinking about what type of individual each of the characters' are (e.g. the henchman has been revealed by the lighting so it is likely that he is not an important character and possesses little power, whilst the boss is completely covered in darkness. Does the darkness represent connotations of pure evil? Is he the main antagonist of the film?). Low key lighting is an excellent technique to use when enigma is the heart and soul of your thriller film as it keeps the audience guessing.

Angles

Angles are very useful for character building. By using tilts to hide features of certain characters (e.g. their face), using low and high angles to show what type of character they are (e.g. intimidating, sly etc.), you can create a lot of mystery behind characters whilst giving the audience clues as to what characters are like, aiding them in piecing together how a character came to look and behave like they do.

Action Thrillers

When it comes to thrillers that rely heavily on the action of the film, Editing plays a big role in making it successful. To be more precise... the use of transitions for pacing in scenes and Continuity Editing.

Transitions

The use of transitions in thrillers that rely on action and suspense is the most important thing to use. Without transitions, the pacing of action can be incredibly slow and it disconnects the audience from the action of a scene due to random cuts between each shot. The most common transition used in scenes where there is a lot of action is a cut. The use of cuts to link shots together can heavily impact how the action plays out in a scene. If you introduce is a scene as being slow, cuts won't be used as often. As soon as the action kicks off, cuts are used more and more regularly. The reason for this is that the action is supposed to be fast-paced and exciting for the audience to watch, so in order to reflect this on film, quick succession cuts are used to match the pacing shown by the characters. The use of these transitions helps to keep the audience engaged with the events on screen.

Continuity Editing (Match on Action and Shot/Reverse Shot)

Two main uses of continuity editing in action thrillers are Match on Action and Shot/Reverse Shot. Match on Action is used to keep the flow of action the same throughout. An example of match on action would be if you had a medium shot of someone reaching for a gun, then the following shot is a close up of them grabbing the gun in their pocket and beginning to pull it out, and then the shot after that reverts back to a medium shot of him finishing the pull of the gun and raising it up. The use of this match on action keeps the flow of action continuous. Instead of stopping at a certain position in one shot, then continuing from a different position in the next shot, match on action uses quick succession cuts to show the flow of action. It helps to keep the audience connected with the events on screen. Without match on action, certain scenes would be disrupted due to the lack of flow, disconnecting the audience.

Shot/Reverse Shot is a clever way to dramatize action. By switching back and fourth between the views of characters, you are able to constantly notice changes in their facial expressions and body language. If you were to have a shot of one character aiming a gun at someone, it wouldn't be exciting simply because there isn't enough tension shown between characters. Using Shot/Reverse Shot allows you to build up tension between characters through their facial expressions and body language. The tension helps to engage and excite the audience as it immerses them in the drama between characters.

Our Thriller Opening and Target Audience

In terms of the appeal of our opening sequence for our target audience, we've decided to incorporate both enigma and action so that it appeals to those that enjoy enigma and those that enjoy action. The combination of the two will prove a challenge to balance out so that both types of people enjoy the opening, but we have some ideas that can help with this. Firstly, our setting will be in woodlands. It's out of the ordinary to start a film in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but trees, but it helps with providing an enigmatic opening. Masks will be used to cover the face of one of the characters and mask his identity. Once again, this produces enigma and plants more questions in the audiences' minds.

We'll be using the trees in our setting to film all types of angles and shot distances in order to display the entirety of the setting and the characters' movements and actions. This provides us a wide selection of places to film shots from, helping us with creating an immersive, fast paced action opening whilst giving us a lot of opportunity to incorporate enigma into it so that our target audience are having to think quickly about why the characters' are in a woodland and why they're chasing each other. This keeps them both guessing and engaged with the events on screen, and this is why we believe that our thriller opening will appeal to our target audience.

Age Certification

Age Certification is a tricky one to decide on. It depends on the content of the film and what you're trying to show the audience. Do you want there to be painful and brutal backstories so that the audience can connect with characters? Do you want the film to simply keep the audience engaged and excited at all times? What kind of mysteries does our target audience enjoy? Murder mysteries? Disappearance mysteries?

Because we want our thriller opening to reflect the lives of gangsters, especially in a time where crime rates are through the roof, we've decided to make our film an 18. The reasoning behind this is that we want to show the harsh brutality, violence and deceit that gangsters experienced. In order to show this in our thriller opening, we will need to use things such as  the iconography of weaponry (e.g. knives, guns) and make-up for serious bruising and bloodied faces. If we are to reflect the reality that gangsters live, an 18 rating is the best way to do so.

Narrative Structure

The story of our film will be in complete chronological order.

The plot will be in chronological order a part from the opening of our film. The opening is the end scene of the entire film. The reasoning for this is to create huge enigma for the audience. By doing this, the rest of the film can be used as one huge 'connect the dot' so that the audience can figure out how events in the film may lead into the final scene.

Restricted/Unrestricted Narration

For our thriller opening, unrestricted narration will be used in order to engage the audience. The reason for this is so the audience can gain a perspective of all the characters in the scene at any one time. This helps with raising questions in their mind about what's going on and what is going to happen next.